Local pool Report #2: Obama on “42,” Pelosi and more at Getty DCCC fundraiser

Here’s our second local pool report filed through the White House after the DCCC fundraiser at the home of Ann and Gordon Getty in San Francisco:

President Obama’s second San Francisco fundraiser was held in the famed atrium of the home of philanthropists Ann and Gordon Getty — two story columned room with large French doors and ornate gold decoration.

About 72 guests were seated at round tables on golden bamboo chairs.

(Your pool and other reporters were sent first to a kids’ nursery to await the start of the event, then ushered into an elaborate, draped waiting room with paintings of a variety of dogs.)

In the atrium, House Minority Leader Pelosi introduced Obama, saying, “This is a president who has met the challenges of our time.’’

Among those challenges, she said, was the challenge of “civility, bipartisanshp…of putting America first.”

She lauded his “endless courtesy,” and his manner of “listening” to all sides. But she said: “He just has a group of people there who do not share his commitment to civility.”

“We want to win so that he can have his agenda…his legacy,” she said, mentioning gun control, climate change, immigration reform, as among key issues to tackle.

The President was met by a standing ovation from the crowd.

“I was first here in 2008 when I was running the firs time…I had much less grey hair then,” he said.

He acknowledged Rep. Steve Israel, the DCCC chair, in the audience.

“I’m here because your neighbor told me I need to be here,” he said to laughs, motioning to Pelosi. “There are very few people in public office that I am more fond of, and respect more.”

“She is thoughtful, she is visionary, she is tough as nails, she is practical…she never lets ideology cloud her judgment,’’ he said.

“I’m just so proud to call her a friend,” he said. “I am here because my job is not simply to occupy the Oval Office. My job is to move the country forward, and I think we can best do that if Nancy Pelosi is Speaker.”

Obama’s speech at the Getty home generally mirrored his earlier address at the home of Tom Steyer in Sea Cliff.

He talked at length about citizenship, and its role in changing the culture, and key issues.

The same folks who say that “government is distant” are “the same folks who claim the Founders,’’ he said. “And yet, when I read the Declaration of Independence, when I read the Constitution….what I see is this central idea that citizenship means we are the government: the government of, and by and for the people…which means we have responsibilities beyond voting, or even writing a check.”

He cited the government’s new investment in research to map the brain as “an entire sweeping horizon when it comes to curing a Alzheimer’s and curing Parkinson’s…to do things we couldn’t even imagine 2 years ago.”

“Now we’re on the threshold of cracking a code that will open up endless possibilities,” he said.

The president did vary from the remarks at his first fundraiser when he noted he recently saw the new movie, “42,’’ about the life of baseball player Jackie Robinson.

“I usually don’t plug movies, but I strongly recommend people take their kids and their grandkids,’’ he said. He was moved, he said, to host the ballplayer’s widow at the showing, adding that “in her lifetime, she saw her husband being the first African American to play in Major League baseball, and now she’s sitting here with me in the White House.’’

And he noted that at the previous fundraiser at Steyer’s house, singer Brandi Carlile “was there with her wife. And she got married the day I announced I supported same sex marriage.’’

“She’s a young woman, and I’m assuming she’s thinking about all the people fighting the good fights — not just at Stonewall, but well before that.’’

“So, generation after generation, we just plug away, and sometimes, we make progress,’’ he said. “And suddenly, there’s a breakthrough…the culture just shifts.”

Motorcade was met all along the way back to South of Market by fairly large crowds, snapping photos and waving.